EdCafe Takeaway

EdCafe Takeaway

Ramsey Musallam (Ted Talk)

creating questions and curiosity

student questions are the seeds of real learning

What the doctor said about his surgical confidence:

curiosity drove him to ask hard questions

he embraced and didn’t fear trial and error

intense reflection allowed him to grasp/gather knowledge he needed to learn and move forward

Musallam's realizations:

1. curiosity comes first
2. embrace the mess
3. practice reflection== what we do deserves our care, but it also deserves our revision

Angela Duckworth

motivational perspective: Duckworth and crew visited many groups of people to ask the question:

“who is successful here and why”

Those who succeeded had GRIT.

GRIT is passion and perseverance for long term goals, living life like it is a marathon not a sprint

How can we boost grit?  (not sure)

Grit is unrelated to measures of talent

Growth mindset (from Stamford): the ability to learn can change with effort. When kids learn about how the brain learns they tend to not give up as easily.

Grit is what my AP students need. Perhaps we need to try to teach grittiness to students by setting long-term goals, such as the AP Portfolios.  They know they need to get to the end.  Be more open about the strong possibility that there will be failures along the way, works that will not eventually go into their portfolios, on which they will spend time and energy and will have to “toss” to make room for the product of new learning.  This happens in Ceramics, too, when something breaks. Unfortunately, in a short class, when something breaks there isn’t always time to learn and re-do something better with the gained knowledge.

Model grittiness.

Inquiry/Question, Passions, Reflection, Grit: how do we incorporate all this into our classrooms

Try:

• Take the grade off a project or two.  Does doing this build in the scaffolding/tools of learning so that in a future project students utilize those skills during a future graded lesson.
• Create a “job” of summing up the learning of the day (stand on a stool and summarize)
• Model Grit.  Put up a sign with “next race:        “
• Show that video (on Grit) and ask them what they think it means.
• Educate parents on the power of Grit
• Ask students: What is your marathon?  How will you run it?
• Can still have criteria, even if not graded.
  
  
  Wouldn't it be great if all students had IEPs containing where they were at academically, socially, extracurricularly and where they were going/future plans? It could still be a fluid document, yet would have someone asking them what their plans were and how they were going to get there. Would that encourage grit? Maybe Advisors should do this during each Fall, meeting with advisees. I think this would be a great way to get to know my advisees better and I think I would be more invested in their progress in classes and outside of classes if I was more aware if each's "big picture." At this point I don't feel confident I know each of my advisees' big picture--and they are seniors!!!